Homemade pasta

Hi everyone! I'm so excited to announce that my husband let me get a pasta roller for my birthday (it's an early birthday gift.) I've been watching Lydia Bastiovitch (sp?) on our local PBS channel make pasta after pasta, and decided it was high time I make my own.
So... Last night, I tried it out. My first batch I made according to the directions in the kitchen aid recipe, using the mixer and dough hook. It turned out so tough, I couldn't even roll it. that got thrown out.
Next, I tried again. I got the food processor out, and pureed a bag of fresh spinach, added the egg, water and flour. oooh... it was such a pretty green! I divided the dough and put it through the rollers. What a remarkable process! I then used my pizza roller to cut some long, irregular shaped fettucini noodles, and added them to the chicken and vegetables I was cooking up for dinner. Kids thought that was the best dinner ever!
I have a lot of dough left over, and thought I'd used it to make lasagna. My question is, do I need to precook the pasta before I assemble the dish? How thin should I make the noodles? Do you have a favorite pasta recipe you'd like to share?

Congrats.. I so want a pasta maker. you do have to pre boil the noodles before or they will turn out hard. you can make the noodles as thin as you like. It's a prefrence. I don't care what anyone else has to say. If you like your noodles thin or thick you make it to your liking! it's your dish that your making not anyone elses. I have a ton of pasta recipes. I make my own chiken alfredo and a couple of other pasta dishes that are really good. The three that are my fav's are ones that i made up of on my own. No help form anyone. If you like cheese you will defently like my Speggtii chicken noodle. Because it is loaded with cheese.

Thanks for the advice. I was wondering how the pasta would bake if I didn't cook it first.
Cheese is it's own food group in our house. I hate to admit how much we actually eat. I have even gotten the kids hooked on some of the "non traditional" kid cheeses. Havarti, munster, and goat cheese. They like them all. So, if you don't mind sharing your recipe, I'd love to have it!!
Funny, when I was a kid, I didn't know there was any other kinds of cheese except for that stuff that sits on the store shelf in the yellow box (Velveeta.)

OMG I love velveta. I make an awesome Scalpt Potatoes and Ham with it! lol but here are some of the recipes.
Speggtii Chicken Noodle:
1lb boneless Chicken
2 (16oz) Bags of Shredded Mozerella
2 (16oz) Bags of Shredded Cheddar
1 Can speggtii Sauce (I perfer the mushroom)
Fresh whole mushrooms
2 TBS of butter
2tsp pepper
2tsp seasoning Salt
2tsp Garlic Powder (fresh garlic does not go good with this)
Manicotti Noodles
Preheat oven to 375Cook the Noodles until they are some what soft. you don't want to cook them compeltly soft or they will tear when you stuff them.
While cooking the noodles cut the chicken(uncooked) into 1 inch squares and place in a large bowl. Chop and Sautee the Mushrooms in a pan with the butter, tsp of seasoning salt and tsp of garlic powder and tsp of pepper. Put the salt, pepper, seasoning salt, garlic powder, Mushrooms, 1/4 of the bag of both cheeses with the chicken and mix with your hands until it is well blended. Once the noodles are done and strained stuff the mixture into the noodles and line them up in a baking pan (don't use a cookie sheet or you will have the sauce everywhere. also to get the noodles to cool faster i like to run them under cold water inthe strainer). Once all noodles are stuffed and lined then pour the jar of sauce over them and load it with the rest of the cheese on top of the sauce. Cover with foil and let them bake for about 30mins. then take the foil off and let it cook another 5-10 mins (usually until the cheese is brown on top). Then enjoy!!
My stuffed chicken shells are the same way except i put the mixture in the jumbo shells and pour alfredo sauce over them. but I cook the shells and mixture without the alfredo sauce. once the shells are done i pour the sauce over them on each plate and top it with chopped tomatoes.
I cook the alfredo sauce with basil, parsley, and garlic(Fresh).

Lasagna doesn't need to be pre cooked. It shouldn't be unless you are using dry noodles. Even then, it doesn't have to be. Make the noodles as thin as you can without the dough tearing. I'm going to make a spinach lasagna tomorrow I already bought the spinach and the cheese. I'm going to invite over a cute guy to help me eat it.
I make pasta all the time. I've never used a recipe. I do it all by sight and feel. It's so yummy.
If you can find semolina flour, use it instead of regular flour. Your pasta will taste better.
I sometimes use my zigzag pizza roller to cut my noodles.

How's the lasagna turn out? More importantly, how was the cute guy? THanks for the advice on the noodles. I did par-boil them before I assembled the lasagna. OOOH... it tasted so yummy!
I'm going to have to look for the semolina flour. The zigzag cutter would make fun noodles, too! I'm sure my kids would love that!!!

The pasta itself wasn't that hard to do. The first batch just turned out tough, and I found the food processor much easier to control how it is mixed than the mixer.
My roller has optional attachments (which I didn't get.) that you can buy that actually cuts the pasta into different widths. From really find angel hair to thick lasagna noodles. It even has a ravioli attachment to cut the little squares for raviolis. (Bless you, Kitchen Aid!!)
When I was little, I remember my parents making homemade noodles on the table. flour made into a volcano shape, with the eggs in the crater. they would mix it all together, not mixing it up too much. Then mom would roll out the dough with her rolling pin, and then just cut out the noodles. We didn't care if they were all the same shape. They all tasted yummy!

does home made pasta taste much different than the store bought type? is it any cheaper to make? we have a bread maker that was given to us for free by friends and have tossed around the idea of making our own pasta, but its not that expensive at the store, so we still continue to buy it. i love all types of pasta (i shoulda been Italian!)

I don't know if it's cheaper, but it was fun to make. I do know I use a lot of dried pasta, too. Especially rigatoni and spaghetti. There are just some times where fresh pasta tastes best (like soup!) It IS cheaper than the frozen egg noodles that I usually buy for soups. The best part was the kids thought they were eating something really special.